LOS ANGELES (AP) — Esther Williams, the swimming champion turned actress who starred in glittering and aquatic Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, has died. She was 91.

Williams died early Thursday in her sleep in her Beverly Hills home, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll.

Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure.

Such films as “Easy to Wed,” ”Neptune’s Daughter” and “Dangerous When Wet” followed the same formula: romance, music, a bit of comedy and a flimsy plot that provided excuses to get Esther into the water.

The extravaganzas dazzled a second generation via television and the compilation films “That’s Entertainment.” Williams’ co-stars included the pick of the MGM contract list, including Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Howard Keel.

On Christmas Day in 1953, at the height of her career, Williams appeared with Bob Hope at a Press-Telegram-sponsored charity event for injured servicemen at Veterans Hospital in Long Beach, joining the comedian in several skits, including one in which she played Mamie Eisenhower to Hope’s Ike.

When hard times signaled the end of big studios and costly musicals in the mid-’50s, Williams tried non-swimming roles with little success. After her 1962 marriage to Fernando Lamas, her co-star in “Dangerous When Wet,” she retired from public life.

She came to films after winning 100-meter freestyle and other races at the 1939 national championships and appearing at the San Francisco World’s Fair’s swimming exhibition.

Williams in a bathing suit became a favorite pinup of GI’s in World War II, and her popularity continued afterward. She was a refreshing presence among MGM’s stellar gallery — warm, breezy, with a frankness and self-deprecating humor that delighted interviewers.

She laughed as much as anyone over an assessment by Fanny Brice, the original “Funny Girl”: “Esther Williams? Wet, she’s a star. Dry, she ain’t.”

After leaving MGM, she starred in two Universal dramatic films, “The Unguarded Moment” and “Raw Wind in Eden.” Neither was successful. In 1961 Lamas directed her last film, “The Magic Fountain,” in Spain. It was never released in America.

When she published her autobiography in 1999, she titled it “The Million Dollar Mermaid.”

Esther Jane Williams grew up destined for a career in athletics. She was born Aug. 8, 1921, in Inglewood, one of five children.

When she was in her teens, the Los Angeles Athletic Club offered to train her four hours a day, aiming for the 1940 Olympic Games at Helsinki. In 1939, she won the Women’s Outdoor Nationals title in the 100-meter freestyle, set a record in the 100-meter breaststroke and was a part of several winning relay teams. But the outbreak of war in Europe that year canceled the 1940 Olympics, and Esther dropped out of competition to earn a living.

She was selling clothes in a Wilshire Boulevard department store when showman Billy Rose tapped her for a bathing beauty job at the World’s Fair in San Francisco.

While there, she was spotted by an MGM producer and an agent. She laughed at the suggestion she do films that would popularize swimming, as Henie had done with ice skating.

“Frankly I didn’t get it,” she recalled. “If they had asked me to do some swimming scenes for a star, that would have made sense to me. But to ask me to act was sheer insanity.”

She finally agreed to visit MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, and recalled that she took the job after her mother told her: “No one can avoid a challenge in life without breeding regret, and regret is the arsenic of life.”

“I’ve been a lucky lady,” she said in a 1984 interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve had three exciting careers. Before films I had the experience of competitive swimming, with the incredible fun of winning. … I had a movie career with all the glamor that goes with it. That was ego-fulfilling, but it was like the meringue on the pie. My marriage with Fernando — that was the filling, that was the apple in the pie.”

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AP Entertainment Writer Lisa Tolin in New York contributed to this report.